1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to electronic inventory control utilizing a pre-programmed, hand-held, computer scanner. Specifically the palm-sized device maintains database tables relating bar code scanned items to functions and optional Internet connectivity. The applicability of this device including the programming includes but is not limited to retail stores in accounting for inventory flow control, manufacturing enterprises where many parts are combined and need to be accounted for in the transition from individual parts to assembled parts as well as the multitude of parts; government agencies and scientific laboratories which must account for movements and locations of evidence or samples; distribution companies which visit on-site purchases and account for their own inventory on shelves or in stockrooms, such as in hospitals, doctor's offices, veterinary clinics, wholesale and retail outlets, grocery stores and others.
2. Description of Related Art
A. Technology
(i) Hand-Held Computers
In the last several years, there has been increasing popularity in the use of hand-held computers. These devices have improved in memory and power. In 1993 Apple produced the Newton, a personal computer; it did not succeed. However, Apple coined the term PDA (personal digital assistant) and began a revolution in computing. It is estimated that venture capitalists spent a billion dollars attempting to develop PDAs in the early 1990s. In 1994, Palm Computing designed the first successful PDA, with the core functions of calendar, to do list, address book, and memo-writing features. Popularized by Palm, and PDAs are now produced by Casio, HP, Sony, Psion, Compaq, Motorola, Hand Spring and. Microsoft developed the Windows CE operating system for PDAs.
Typically users input data to the PDA using shorthand scripts. Palm popularized its “Graffiti” language which is more efficient than Apple's first attempts to have the Newton recognize any script. With regard to numerical data input there often exists inefficiencies in data entry.
(ii) Bar Codes and Scanners
In 1948, Silver and Woodland invented a “bulls eye” code for cash registers. It could not maintain inventory or collect data. The Woodland and Silver patent application was issued Oct. 7, 1952 as U.S. Pat. No. 2,612,994. In 1951, optical character recognition (OCR) was invented. In 1967 bar code scanning by OCR was first used in supermarkets. In 1973 the Uniform Code Counsel was instituted to develop Uniform Product Codes—UPCs. Subsequently point of sale devices, such as electronic cash registers and scanners used UPC codes to price items and to track sales. Bar codes have also been used to track the movement of items, assemble items, account for items. See for example, Bar Code History Page at http://www.adams1.com/pub/russadam/history.html. Bar codes however were first used to track the movement of cars on trains. See the History of Bar Codes, http://escher.cs.ucdavis.edu:1024/CS15/history.html. Interestingly bar codes, bar code readers through OCR and UPC itemization all developed independently of each other. The confluence of these technologies produced a serendipitous revolution in tracking and sales.
The advent of bar code (or bar code ) scanners have revolutionized point of sale activities and movement tracking abilities. However, in a retail environment, point of sale information does not tell a complete story. Establishments must reconcile with amounts ordered, and amounts on-hand or in stock.
(iii) Web-Based Ordering
The Internet was originally developed as ARPANET and then as DARPANET of the Department of Defense as a network which would provide uninterrupted communication in the event of a nuclear war. Later, at CERN, an English scientist Tim Berner-Lee, who now holds an endowed chair at MIT, developed hypertext language and certain protocols. After the personal computer revolution of the 1980s, and the opening of the Internet to educational institutions, the Internet was made available to the public at large.
The Internet was used for different protocols and effect. Certain clients were used for electronic mail (email), while others were used for file transfer (FTP—file transfer protocol), and browsing (first by Mosaic, then Netscape and Explorer as noteworthy examples).
Commercial communication has been enhanced and utilizes all of these abilities. Email can replace facsimile is a paperless, now nearly instant form of person to person or business to business (B2B) communication. Purchase orders for example can be transmitted as email requests. Browsing is used ubiquitously for personal and business ordering. A vendor creates a website, in which a purchaser enters order information. The order information is stored electronically. In some circumstances corporations have endeavored to create automated fulfillment with some success (Amazon.com for example). However the process of entering the data is still laborious for the purchaser.
File Transfer Protocol—FTP—can be used to automatically transfer files between computers. In 1972-3, AT&T's then Bell Labs developed the “C” computer language and the Unix operating system, first developed to serve as a network switching facility. During the development of telephonic capabilities, Unix researchers created the UUCP and UUX commands which permitted automated dialing and modem hookup between Unix based computers with the option of bidirectionally transferring files (UUCP—Unix to Unix copy) and bidirectionally executing commands at remote locations. The FTP technology was developed to facilitate transfer of files between dissimilar computer systems.
With the ability to integrate FTP, bar code and scanning technology, hand-held computing and web-based ordering a technological revolution in ordering and fulfillment is possible. The present invention harkens the arrival of this new age.
Therefore:
Scanners and bar code readers have not been integrated with PDAs in small to medium sized businesses to:                function independently of a computer system;        integrate with a computer system;        deal with complex situations such as multiple vendors, multiple locations, multiple clients;        automatically integrate with purchasing and on-hand accounting systems;        automatically integrate with automated sales ordering.And generally in businesses and government organizations:        track the movement of items, units, samples or evidence;        track the use of supplies;        track the manufacturing process from parts to assembled items.        
At this time, scanners, which have the ability to scan bar codes have been integrated with PDAs by companies such as Symbol. However, the intelligence within the PDA has not been effectively exploited until this time. The present innovations directly exploit the abilities and intelligence of the PDA integrated with the technologies of scanning and bar code development.
B. Applications
(i) Flow of Items through a Controlled Environment.
With regard to the sales of goods, wholesalers, retailers, and merchants of all kinds have in days past performed inventory control functions by counting the number of items for each type of item or product and then tabulating the same. Originally, such methods were accomplished by paper and pencil. A merchant would close the enterprise periodically to take stock of the inventory on the shelves and in the stockrooms and correlate the on-hand stock with the inventory sold, lost, missing, or damaged. In a large enterprise this is a laborious and costly undertaking. In a company which stocks tens of thousands or even a hundred thousand individual items, the task is daunting and inaccurate.
With the advent of the computer cash register, and the bar code reader, reading SKU's, UPC codes, the number of items sold was tabulated by the bar code. This provided point of sale information giving snapshots of the movement of inventory. However, there are several elements of inventory movement: inventory is received through purchasing, placed in storerooms or directly on shelves, then items are lost, damaged, misplaced, stolen, transferred, or sold, and then at the point of sale, those items that are sold are tabulated. The manager must reconcile the inventory obtained with the inventory on-hand and with the inventory that has been sold or otherwise no longer available.
From an accounting point of view, it is important to perform these tabulations to calculate future and seasonal usage, profits or losses, assets and to ascertain problems and trends. There are economies of scale, such that in many industries, the need to survive involves expanding the store, the number of items and kinds of items available, and the number of outlets. For example, in the vitamin and supplement industry, a single outlet may carry 5,000 to 100,000 different items, given the size and comprehensiveness of the outlet. A given vitamin may be sold in different potencies. Then there are bottles of the same potency with different quantities. The same potencies and quantities may be obtained from different manufactures. The same manufacturer may make the same items available through different distributors or vendors. Additional subtle factors come into play. Some items sell better seasonally. Some items are priced at special prices by the vendor. Some items due to trends or quality become top sellers. Some vendors have better return policies. Sometimes a vendor is unable to supply merchandise and offers the merchandise on a back-order status to the enterprise. Many items have expiration dates, and must be discarded if not sold by a certain date. All of this needs to be controlled and referenced to efficiently manage a business. The purchasing manager has to determine the number of items on hand, and the predicted usage, and then the best source to purchase these different items. There has been a long felt need to have a comprehensive way to track the movement of inventory items, predict usage, tabulate amounts on hand, and order from appropriate vendors.
Once the sums of inventory on-hand and inventory sold has been tabulated, then the inventory manager could study trends, determine which items to order, and in which quantities, and then place the order with the appropriate vendors for each item. During the process of ordering, the inventory manager analyzes product movement, compares prices between different vendors, creates purchase orders, and submits these orders. When the product is received, the inventory manager would stock the inventory, verify shelf-tag pricing, print new shelf-tags if needed, manage inventory stock levels, and analyze product movement again.
The distributor of items has analogous problems. A distributor is typically a company that buys products from different manufacturers, stocks product, and resells the product at a markup. A distributor wants to keep the shelves of many stores stocked. Often the distributor's sales agent will go to a store, and travel to different aisles and shelves and count the on-hand inventory. The sales agent will determine how much product is in the stock room. The sales agent will have to tabulate and predict the amount of stock that has been used since the last sales cycle. Then the sales agent will create a purchase order for the store, get an OK, and order the merchandise for the store. In the case of the store, or chain of stores, there are multiple vendors for multiple items with different packaging, manufacturers, vendors, and locations. In the case of the distributor, there are multiple stores or chains of stores within the sales agent's territory. Close analysis shows that this is essentially an identical analytical problem. A broker is usually considered a sales agent who does not purchase or stock inventory, but rather acts as an outside agent for a manufacturer or distributor. Distributors, manufacturers reps, brokers, and sales agents work with relatively low margins and high volumes. Any efficiencies in tabulation, prediction, and ordering will permit more sales calls in the same time, and substantially greater profitability.
There exists now systems using hand-held computer scanners which can tabulate the number of items on-hand for a given manufacturer or line. However, none of these is programmed to maintain a history of sales, account for multiple locations, account for multiple stores and/or account for multiple vendors and account for multiple clients.
A similar situation is found in the case of industries which maintain large amounts of inventory for internal use and consumption which may be later charged to a customer. For example, a hospital stock room, a veterinary hospital, a doctor's office may stock enormous quantities of goods that are expensive and quickly deployed. Stock room nurses have the daunting task of controlling the flow of goods, accounting for the use, and reordering in a timely fashion. The same problems of multiple vendors, multiple locations, predictive use, cost comparisons, and usage accounting exist.
In a manufacturing environment, often a large number of component parts are assembled to create a fewer number of assembled parts or items. Managers must ascertain the number of each item on hand, predict the future needs, determine competitive sources and pricing, and account further for the creation of the assembled units. In this situation a relatively large number of component parts flows in and a different number of assembled parts flows out. There exists large ERP computer database systems for factories to do high level accounting and management, but there are not intelligent hand-held computer scanners used to optimize efficiencies.
In the analogous situation of the flow of items, an important item may flow from one handler to another. Take for example government environmental testing of soil samples. A field agent takes multiple samples, labels each, keeps each sample under strict control until it is passed on to a receiving agent who under strict control stores the sample until it is transmitted to a lab where the sample is analyzed and then placed in post testing storage. The chain of custody must be carefully controlled. Similar situations are found in law enforcement agencies of all types. The chain of custody for evidence must be carefully controlled and an authority must be able to testify to the authenticity of a sample or other physical evidence. Therefore the are needs for an automated system to track the source of a sample, the sample itself, and then the history of the sample through a chain of custodians.
In each of these situations, a situation exists where either a bar code is already affixed to a unit, with the identification created by the Uniform Product Counsel, thus producing a UPC code, or a situation in which a bar code unit number (often a SKU—stock keeping unit—a commonly used term to denote a means for identifying units) could be affixed to an item or a box or container storing that item, to track the flow of that item through an environment. This is an abstract mathematical analysis of the flow inventory through a store or chain store, or through a medical supply room, or a sample through a custodial chain in legal or governmental or scientific environments. This system has been laborious in the past and errors are common. Errors bring a loss of efficiency which brings substantial costs in profitability or success of an enterprise.
Greater efficiencies would take place if multiple personnel could perform the above referenced tasks simultaneously. There is a great need to organize and automate the entire inventory control process of small to medium businesses through the use of hand-held computer scanners.
(iii) Remote Storage
An additional problem that has occurred is the storage of data in hand-held computer scanners as independent data storage devices. Once a sales agent has scanned a stockroom or a sales facility such as a retail store, the agent must download and transmit the data. Additional advantage would obtain if a history of items or inventory is maintained in the hand-held computer scanner.
(iv) Perpetual Inventory
An additional problem is further involved in questions regarding how many items are on-hand at a given time versus how many items have been sold. When purchase orders are fulfilled, product is received by the enterprise. The enterprise may have ordered 100 of a given item, but there may be only 10 or none received. Or there may be 3 shipments at different time, or any given combination which may not equal the exact amount purchased. Therefore the purchase order may not be reflected in its fulfillment. Then, once inventory is stocked, items may decrement for various reasons: items may be lost, damaged, discarded, misplaced, incorrectly accounted for, stolen, returned, transferred to other locations, replenished or utilized as sold or used in manufacture or sampling. Some enterprises attempt to account for the movement of every item. This is a very difficult task. Others estimate losses and purchase order adjustments. There is a need for an efficient means of automatically estimating the amount to order. With just point of sale information, perpetual inventory is a very rigid, inflexible and difficult task. There is a need to integrate point of sale information with on-hand information.
(iv) Automated Ordering
In the past, the way to make an order of product involved estimating the needs for a purchase and then transmitting the same to a vendor. Often the transmission involved making a telephone call or faxing or mailing a purchase order that had been created. In the last several years, with the explosion of the use of the Internet, companies have placed orders over the Internet. This often takes the form of logging in to a given website, and filling out an on-line purchase order. However, this really only obviates the need to use a facsimile and while this may create efficiencies for the vendor, does little for the purchaser. Often navigating through a web-site is more cumbersome than filling out a form on paper or making a telephone call. There is a need to bring greater efficiencies in ordering for small to medium sized businesses, particularly those with significant numbers of inventory items and/or those with multiple suppliers.